Fighting the Anti-Science Forces

There are lots of ’em out there: people who don’t understand the difference between science and religion, people who prefer fantasy to fact, people who think that imposing their own particular reason on children through the school system is a perfectly fine and decent thing to do, people who choose to stick their head in the metaphysical sand instead of approach the world with a sense of curiosity, skepticism, and experimentation, and people who see science and education as potential threats to their sense of power and ability to control others. These forces come in numerous forms, from simple and individual ignorance to world-wide networks dedicated to disrupting science and education through a series of well-coordinated lies.

Of course, at the heart of such anti-science and anti-rational efforts are the continued misinformation and deceptions these people spread about the Theory of Evolution. This came up recently in a Facebook comments thread that I was part of and I decided to contact my friend Jay for some links and thoughts on the matter because he’s been doing a lot of research on evolution and the battle against creationists. His response was helpful in framing my own arguments and the resources he provides are excellent if you want to learn more about how to fight against these anti-science, anti-rational winguts who can’t be bothered to understand the basics of the scientific method and who want our children to be uneducated and scientifically illiterate. He has kindly let me reprint his email here.

Here are half a dozen that clearly explain why evolution is notreligion, how it has been proven and more.

Evolution has been proven over and over, in the lab, in radioactivedating, in field observations, in the fossil record and more.

All modern life sciences have evolution as a basis and they workbecause of it. Gene therapy for diseases, DNA testing, drug-resistantdiseases like TB and MRSA, animal husbandry, plant breeding,neurology, etc.

The argument that one of dozens of various creation myths from thebronze age are better suited to explain how life got where it is, thanmillions of hours of research in the lab, in paleontology, in genesequencing is ridiculous.

The idea of “teaching both” is a false dichotomy for two reasons.

1) Which creation myth should we teach? The Flying Spaghettit Monster? The Norse version?

If someone wanted to teach all of those in a comparative religionsclass, then that is fine. But they have no place in a science class.On the other hand if the “teach both” means teach the Biblicalversion, then that is clearly illegal – see the Dover trial amongothers.

2) Teaching both makes it sound like there is some sort of sciencebehind the non-evolutionary ideas. There is not. Every creationistargument against evolution has been shown to be false.

Oh, and often someone will say “its just a theory”, yes, that is true,Because in science a theory is an overarching idea of how things workbacked up by facts. For example, the theory of GRAVITY or RELATIVITY.Now, if you do not want to acknowledge that Evolution is fact, then Isuggest you either show gravity is false by jumping off a bridge, orthat relativity is false by putting an atomic bomb in your church.

Darwin never said it was a religion and “darwinism” is a word used bycreationists to make it seem like they are comparable. Evolution hashad many changes. For example, Darwin knew nothing of DNA, yet DNA has augmented the theory, BUT it did change how the changes are passed from generation to generation. That is the hallmark of science, new evidence changes ideas. Creationism refuses to change in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

As for “ape to man with no bones” here is a great example of dozens offossils found.

One thought on “Fighting the Anti-Science Forces”

“Not only does this finding provide biologists with an example of evolution in action, but it also provides wildlife managers with knowledge that they can use to develop plans for managing invasive species,”

Comments are closed.

Liminal

1: of or relating to a sensory threshold

2: barely perceptible

3: of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition